Institute for Quantum Information

California Institute Of Technology, Pasadena CA

Investigators

Abstract

This award provides continued support for the Institute for Quantum Information (IQI), which was founded at Caltech in September 2000. The IQI is devoted to building the theoretical foundations of quantum information science across a broad front encompassing quantum algorithms, quantum cryptography, quantum information theory, fault-tolerant quantum information processing, and physical implementations of quantum computing. Basic advances in all of these areas are needed to bring revolutionary quantum technologies closer to realization. The strength of the IQI rests on three distinctive qualities: a focus on interdisciplinary research, an emphasis on fostering the career development of world-class postdoctoral talent, and devotion to an active visitor program. The IQI promotes synergistic interactions among scientists with a variety of backgrounds. Physicists and computer scientists collaborate on investigations of quantum algorithms and quantum cryptographic protocols. Control theorists and physicists team up to illuminate the structure of entanglement. Theorists and experimenters join forces to conceive feasible realizations of quantum hardware. The IQI has attracted and trained top postdoctoral scholars, seven of whom have moved on to faculty positions (or the equivalent) elsewhere, thus significantly strengthening the world effort in QIS. The visitor program fuels intellectual excitement, facilitates collaborations and exchanges of scientific ideas, and performs a highly valued service for the international QIS community. With the end of scalability of conventional silicon-based information technology on the horizon, it is vitally important to explore aggressively new paradigms for information technology. IQI contributions are dedicated to broadening the nation's technical base and ensuring US leadership in the future development of quantum science and technology. Funding for this award is provided through the Physics at the Information Frontier program in the Physics Division and the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate and the Emerging Models and Technologies for Computation Cluster in the Computing and Communications Foundations Division in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate.